Neil Warnock was left relishing the prospect of promotion rivals West Ham’s visit to Elland Road on Saturday after savouring victory for the first time since becoming Leeds manager.

Warnock is anticipating a 30,000-strong crowd when Sam Allardyce’s side head to Yorkshire after Leeds’s promotion prospects were invigorated by a comfortable win in their make-or-break trip to fellow Barclays Premier League hopefuls Middlesbrough.

First-half goals from skipper Robert
Snodgrass and Luciano Becchio put the visitors in command against
opponents reduced to 10 men when Barry Robson was dismissed late on for
kicking out at Adam Clayton.

‘West Ham will be a fabulous game.
Nearly 30,000 fans will be there. It will be a humdinger. I can’t wait
for that noise. Sam has done a great job so it’s great to be involved
again in the promotion race,’ said Warnock.

‘This was almost a complete away
performance. We did the nasty things well. We didn’t do anything fancy.
It was the muck-and-nettles stuff I like. Now we have to go on a
fantastic run to get into the play-offs but we’re quite capable of
that.’

Snodgrass set the ball rolling in the
18th minute with the first goal of Warnock’s Leeds reign, slotting the
ball beneath Jason Steele.

Leeds, never beaten at the Riverside,
dominated proceedings and Boro suffered another setback when substitute
Kevin Thomson was taken off on a stretcher after being knocked out by a
boot in the face from Clayton.

Boro manager Tony Mowbray lamented
‘gifting two goals’ to Leeds but defended Robson, saying: ‘The referee
(Carl Boyeson) was too clever for his own good. I don’t see a red card
there.’